When All Is Said Read online

  ‘Maurice, what if she hates it? What if it sets her off on one of her fits and she doesn’t recover? I don’t know what I’d do. Would we have to bring her to live in the house with us then or what? Sure, we couldn’t bring her back to Donegal. Ach, are we doing the right thing at all?’

  She sat in the passenger seat staring ahead the day of the move, like a scared little girl, needing to explain and defend this woman, merrily chatting away to herself in the rear. I reached my hand to hers as they writhed in her lap.

  ‘We’re in this together, Sadie,’ I said.

  I think she nodded. My hand didn’t leave hers until the gears cried out. I felt her own hand move in under my left thigh then, where it nestled for the rest of the journey until we arrived on the gravel driveway of Duncashel Care Home. I’d barely stopped the car before Noreen was out and past the nurse standing waiting to greet us. We ran after her as she scurried down the corridors.

  ‘New room! New room!’ she chirped, louder and louder until the nurse finally caught up and escorted her to the yellow wallpapered room with its neat single bed and locker. And a large window at which she was to spend much of her life, looking out at the car park, waiting for us to arrive, or so your mother always thought.

  Sadie cried buckets that night on leaving. It was utter relief, of course.

  It became the tradition that Noreen came to our house every Saturday, thereafter. Most days, depending on her mood, she’d stay over long enough to attend Mass and then have Sunday dinner. You were about five at the time. You called her Auntie No-no.

  ‘No-no,’ she’d squeal, and so would you when you saw each other.

  She wasn’t always a saint with you mind. Do you remember the rows? It was like having a second child. She was such a rummager, loved to poke about. One minute she was beside us and the next gone, and might have been for a while without us knowing. She was crafty in her escapes. In the early days we let her wander too much.

  ‘Auntie No-no, NO!’ we’d hear you scream from down the corridor.

  We’d arrive to find some Lego thing you’d been building broken in bits on the floor. Your mam would stay with you and help set everything right again while I got Noreen out and back down to the sitting room, where she’d sit and watch the match with me, twiddling at my sleeve. In the end we had to lock your door when she came to stay. You’d take out a few toys to keep you going while she was there, bits that you didn’t mind sharing. She didn’t seem to care that your room was out of bounds. But still she’d check the door every time, in case we forgot.

  You played endless games of Monopoly together.

  ‘What kind of rules are they playing in there at all?’ I asked your mother once, when I came in to find you both sprawled out on the sitting-room floor with It’s a Knock Out on the TV in the background. You had hotels and houses everywhere, in the jail, on the free parking, in the middle.

  ‘Their own,’ she said, smiling at me, laying the Saturday-evening fry in front of me.

  It all ended in tears when she’d started to pocket the iron and the hat, not to mention the dog, your favourite.

  ‘Would you go see where that one is?’ Sadie said, this one Sunday when things seemed a little too quiet in the house. She was bending down to turn the roasting tin around in the Aga at the time. The aroma of the meat wafted around the kitchen, making my stomach howl. Reluctantly, I laid the sports section of the Sunday Independent down on the kitchen table and ventured forth.

  ‘Any sign of No-no, Kev?’ I asked, putting my head around the door of the sitting room to find you on your own, watching telly, giving it loads, pretending to be part of the action of the cowboy movie on screen.

  ‘Don’t let your mother see you on the back of that couch,’ I warned, as I left you to it.

  ‘Noreen,’ I continued, making my way down the corridor leading to our bedrooms, ‘are you there?’

  I detected movement and tracked it to our bedroom. I opened the door and straight away wished I hadn’t.

  ‘Sparkle, sparkle,’ I heard from the window beyond, in front of which stood our dressing table. Sadie’s pride and joy. Purchased beyond, at great expense, in Shaw’s in Duncashel.

  ‘Oh dear. What have you found?’ I said, optimistically enough until I took in the disarray she had created. ‘Ah, Noreen, what in God’s name are you up to?’

  The room seemed in shock from the hurricane that had just swept through it. Coats and jackets that rarely got any outings, some of which I was sure I’d never seen before, lay strewn on the bed and floor and anywhere else that might support their weight. Drawers stood open, the contents half in, half out.

  ‘Sparkle, sparkle!’ she answered.

  ‘Sparkle, sparkle my arse. Your sister will kill you, not to mention me if we don’t get this lot cleared up quick smart. Noreen! Noreen! Are you listening to me at all?’

  Where things got put in our house was a world of magic and wonder to me. We lived in a house of order that was Sadie’s domain. Now, here I stood with a heap of mess, with neither wand nor wisdom to know where to begin. I had two choices: call in the big guns or make a stab at it myself. For reasons I cannot fathom, I chose the latter. And so, while I charged about bravely, folding and hanging and pushing and squeezing things into spaces that were blatantly too small, Noreen continued to stand with her back to me, entranced with whatever it was she had. Even if I’d wanted to know what it was, I couldn’t have reached her, such was the mountain of chaos between us that I’d have needed one of those Sherpa lads to guide me through.

  My longer than expected absence from the Sunday paper had obviously aroused suspicion and before I knew it, I heard Sadie approaching. Despite my innocence of the crime, I felt as guilty as Noreen should have when Sadie entered the room. I all but cried out ‘mea culpa’.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Maurice, what in God’s name…’

  Now, let me just say that this was a first – never in her whole life had your mother ever cursed so much as she did that afternoon. Generally, that was my department. I don’t even think I could do justice to what she actually said. Had I not been so terrified myself, I would’ve been rather proud of her rage.

  ‘It wasn’t me. It was your sister!’ the idiot that was me said, pointing in your auntie’s direction.

  ‘Noreen. Noreen. Look at me right now,’ Sadie barked.

  I closed my eyes because I couldn’t bear the wrath that that poor woman was about to endure, however much she may have deserved it.

  ‘Sparkle, sparkle, Sadie.’ Noreen turned and held aloft the treasure she had unearthed.

  ‘You and those bloody coins! Noreen, what were you thinking? Look at this mess! Look at it … And who is going to clean it up? Not me I can tell you. If you can pull it out you can put it back. And you can do it right now! Maurice, come on out, come on. Would you just climb over that and stop foostering. Leave her to it. No dinner until this is done. Do you hear me, Noreen?’

  No dinner until it was done! I was too afraid to enquire if this ‘no dinner’ punishment was to extend to me – sure that would have meant we’d have been eating that lovely big lump of beef at teatime, or later. My stomach was not accustomed to that. I was strictly a one o’clock man, always had been. This was a disaster. My shock meant my exit was slower than Sadie would’ve liked. But in my slow retreat, I had time to see what had caused the whole debacle. Now remember, son, this was years before Emily told me about the history of the coin I’d stolen from the Dollards. By this stage, I hadn’t seen it in over twenty years, but there it was. Noreen, having noticed my interest, stretched it out in my direction.

  ‘Beautiful sparkle. Gold sparkle!’ she shouted enthusiastically, hoping I would share in her joy.

  ‘Gold?’ I said. Not knowing then what I know now, I’d never believed the thing to be real gold, but it wasn’t the time for a debate. ‘Where did you find that, Noreen?’

  ‘Here.’ Noreen pointed to a small drawer of the dresser, left of the mirror. For the life of
me, I couldn’t remember putting the coin in there. What’s worse, if I’d been asked before that moment whether a drawer even existed there at all, let alone a coin in it, I wouldn’t have known.

  ‘That’s not mine, Noreen … well it is, in a way. But you can’t have it, you understand, it’s not mine to give. You’ll have to give this one back.’

  ‘Maurice’s sparkle?’

  ‘Yes. Well, no. It’s complicated. But you must put it back.’

  ‘Noreen will mind Maurice’s sparkle and then put it back. OK? I only mind it, Maurice, OK?’

  ‘You promise to put it back, Noreen? I’ll have to check later, before you go. You’ll put it back – yes?’

  ‘Noreen put it back.’

  She nodded and smiled. I left the room dubiously. It was the first time I’d ever denied her a coin, but for some reason it would have felt wrong to have parted with that one. When I got back to the kitchen I found my poor wife with her head in her hands.

  ‘What was that thing she found, anyway?’ she finally managed, after we’d been sitting for some time at the kitchen table, me with my arm around her in an effort to show support with my stomach howling.

  ‘Mammy, I’m starving, when’s dinner?’ you said, coming through the door at that very moment along with the sounds of a Comanche attack from the other room.

  ‘Hold on a wee while there, Kevin. What was it, Maurice?’

  ‘But Mammy…’

  ‘Ah, that,’ I said. ‘It was that coin I found a long time ago. You know, the Dollard one. I’m sure I told you about it. Forgot I had it. I told her she couldn’t have it. She said OK, but you know yourself.’

  ‘Kevin, will you stop with the jiggin’ and pulling out of me?’ Sadie said. ‘That yoke? I thought I told you to give that back a long time ago. And now look what’s happened. Sure we’ll never hear the end of it now. She’ll always be wanting it.’

  Everything had suddenly become my fault. I looked at my paper as my indignation breathed in the smell of the roast beef and felt wholeheartedly sorry for myself.

  ‘How long should we leave her in there do you think?’ Sadie said, not a hint of regret at her unfair treatment of me. ‘Kevin, will you stop? I can’t hear your father. The dinner will have to wait.’

  ‘But I’m starving,’ you appealed. I could’ve kissed you.

  ‘In fairness Sadie, I reckon my stomach can’t hold out much longer either,’ I bravely added.

  ‘Alright,’ she said, taking pity on the sorry sight of her two men, rising to take the meat out of the Aga. ‘We’ll sort it all after the dinner so. But she’ll help us.’ Sadie stood over the beef on the counter, shaking the carving knife at me, like I might protest. ‘Kevin, start setting the table and Maurice, go call Noreen.’

  Noreen did help to clear up in the end, in her own way. And to my utter shock she was true to her word about the coin. It was back in the drawer when she left for home that night. No battle, no war of words, no injection this time. Over the years there was less and less need for those, thankfully. As she grew older, she actually mellowed, or maybe like the rest of us, her energy gradually waned.

  * * *

  Svetlana puts the toasted special down.

  ‘Sorry for delay. “Bedlam,” Chef say, I don’t know what that is but there you go, that’s what he say. You OK for everything. You need sauces?’

  ‘No, you’re grand now,’ I say, and watch her push her way back through the doors, disappearing into the kitchen.

  I look at it and wonder what was I thinking. As the night has drawn on, I haven’t the heart or inclination for more food. But not willing to waste it, I take a tentative bite anyway, wary of the lethal burn of a hot tomato. But as I chew, I know it’s no use. I lay it back down and push away the plate of this, my last supper.

  * * *

  It was twenty-seven years later that I learned the origin of the coin from Emily at that special dinner she’d arranged. But even then she’d been holding back. And it wasn’t until a year after that again that I found out the real consequence of its theft. And it was all because of Noreen, would you believe.

  It was another Sunday, and Sadie, Noreen and me were in the market for a lunch. In those days we’d begun to have the Sunday dinner out. We were in our seventies by then and were deserving of some treats, or so your mother had told me anyway. There we were on the road after Mass debating our destination.

  ‘Hotel,’ Noreen stated from the back. She always wanted to go to the Rainsford. I blame you and your wedding on that. One of the happiest days of her life.

  ‘And what about Kenny’s over in Duncashel, would you not prefer that? You like the chips there.’

  ‘Hotel,’ came the reply, a little more forcibly this time. It was not one of her good days.

  ‘How about Murtagh’s?’

  ‘Hotel,’ she roared.

  ‘Ah, for God’s sake Maurice, would you not be upsetting her. We’ll go to the hotel, Noreen, don’t you worry.’

  The force of Sadie’s words could’ve turned the steering wheel all by itself. I dropped them off at the door of the place, while I went to find a parking space. Delaying as much as I could, I stopped into Lavin’s to pick up the paper.

  ‘Hannigan, it’s yourself,’ Lavin bellowed, as I put the paper down in front of him.

  ‘’Tis.’

  ‘Great day, now. Are you in for the bit of lunch? I saw you drop themselves in there. You can’t beat their steak. That’s my recommendation any way. How did the sheep go for you Thursday?’

  ‘The sheep? The sheep are my business Lavin and none of yours.’

  ‘Tell nothin’ to no man.’

  ‘Shall I pay you for the paper or are you giving it to me free?’

  ‘Wouldn’t I be the fool if I did that?’

  ‘Far be it from me Lavin … Here, I’ll get next Sunday’s free, so,’ said I, landing a fiver on the counter before leaving.

  By the time I arrived in the foyer, I could see all was not well. The place was heaving. Sadie was standing at the dining-room door looking in all worried, perhaps there was no room, I thought. Hope for me yet. I risked a smile. But it didn’t last long when I remembered it was the thirtieth anniversary of the hotel’s opening. Robert had told me about it but I’d forgotten. My stomach lurched when I considered it quite possible Thomas might be home from England. Ducking like a big eejit behind some class of a tree in the foyer, I peered out cautiously. No longer a well-built brick of a man, instead a terrified boy of ten still fearful of the master. Coming to my senses, I near knocked the tree down as I stepped out from behind it. Attempting to settle myself, I allowed my eye to wander, to pretend an interest in the decor. It was then I saw a photograph of Rainsford House in its heyday, hanging on the wall nearby. I’d not seen it before, certainly it hadn’t been there at the wedding or I’d have noticed. I leaned in to get a better gander. There was a date – 1925, a bit before my time. A man was standing in the foreground looking directly at the photographer. His face was familiar, but I couldn’t place him. A Dollard alright, but not one I recognised. I stood there for some time lost in the puzzle of him, annoyed that I couldn’t figure it out, until an exasperated Sadie found me.

  ‘It’s full. A private function apparently. What will we do now? She’ll not be happy. You’d better tell her. She accepts things better from you.’

  ‘Like in the car, you mean. She’s your sister, you tell her.’

  Sadie turned away, betrayed. I looked at the picture one last time, making sure my memory couldn’t produce a name, but nothing came in the end and I walked off defeated. When I found Sadie again she was standing at the entrance to the bar, flummoxed, looking about her.

  ‘Well, where is she?’

  ‘If I knew that, Maurice, I wouldn’t be standing on my own now would I?’

  Back firmly in my box, I surveyed the crowd, but couldn’t make her out in the hustle and bustle. And then, there arose a familiar sound.

  ‘Sparkle, sparkle!’

>   We moved quickly. Scurrying through the crowd, we followed its summons, wondering whose pockets she’d rifled or whose change she’d stolen this time and how we’d talk ourselves out of it. We arrived right where I am sitting now, to find none other than Thomas Dollard attempting to wrestle a coin from Noreen’s hands. She, of course, was having none of it and was batting him away with her powerful swipe.

  ‘Madam! I beg your pardon. Give me back my coin at once. Madam!’

  Had Sadie not rushed to Noreen’s aid, or perhaps it was Thomas’s she was more concerned with, I’d have gladly stood back to watch that pantomime for as long as it lasted. Priceless. A grown bully, wrong-footed by a woman half his size who, by the looks of it, was winning the contest.

  ‘Noreen!’ My poor wife’s pleas called me from my reverie of Noreen punching him in the face.

  ‘Noreen, give it to me. Noreen! Maurice! Could you help, please?’

  But before I could take a step towards them, Noreen was before me, having bounded over, even more excited than was normal with one of her discoveries.

  ‘Look! Your sparkle. Your sparkle, Maurice,’ she said, holding her fist far too close to my face.

  ‘My sparkle? Noreen, how’s it my sparkle?’ Smiling, I placed a calming hand on her shoulder and lowered her fist so I could focus on what she held.

  ‘Come over here and show me,’ I said, leading her to a nearby table, the occupants of which had quickly left to give us space.

  Sadie instinctively knew to hold his highness back, throwing him a warning glance to leave me be. He danced an infuriated jig at the bar, while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on me.

  ‘Right, Noreen, show me my sparkle, so?’

  She unfurled her fingers and there I saw my, or rather, Thomas’s, coin. Time stopped as I swallowed hard. He’d found me out, I thought. Somehow, he’d broken into my house and ransacked it until he’d retrieved the only evidence of the theft – the coin itself. There could be no other explanation. The Gardaí were possibly outside at that very minute, waiting to take me away. Or perhaps something more sinister, perhaps Thomas wished to finish what I always suspected he had truly wanted – to kill me and now he had the justification. I placed my hands over Noreen’s, closing them, willing the thing to go away, willing time to transport me back so that I could keep walking, never bending down to pick up the blasted thing in the first place.